Back to the future

I forgot to post that we were off to Ottawa this weekend.

But we were.  It was mostly a bonding-function trip; taking Noah to meet family, stay with his grandmother, and for Carl and I to see our niece & nephews & cousins as well.  It’s a 4.5 hr car ride, so en toddler that means 5.5 hrs, pretty much. 

Noah was great in the car all things considered; he only slept 40 min on the way up which made for tired cranky guy, but coming back he had a 2 hr nap and was really great. I did have to spend the last half of the trip in the backseat reading and playing, but that was okay.

I know that Noah’s social nature and security is 90% personality.  But I have to say that this weekend I kind of felt proud of the remaining 10%, because he basically hooked up with the kidpack and ran with it – as the baby of the group the other kids were pretty careful with him, and he just beamed and enjoyed and played and was just – fun.  I’d thought he would get overwhelmed or throw toys or tantrums or get nervous or something, but he didn’t.  I don’t know if he remembered the kids from the cottage last summer or if it’s just comforting to be around people that look like him, but it was like he saw them every day. He just… walked in and started playing.

And the sense of family was intense, esp. at the family dinner on Sunday. My extended family is quite different from Carl’s and Carl’s family gathers in large numbers for rowdy events.  It’s kind of started to grow on me and I don’t spend hours in recovery after the chaos anymore.  And this time I felt this kind of warm glow that this is Noah’s clan, [this post is very italics heavy] and that he is really lucky to have that, and it’s worth all the driving to maintain that. (And flying. This summer. Eek.)

Carl couldn’t make the family dinner though (work), so driving back as Noah was almost-but-not-quite passing out in the car and it was the gloaming time of the evening, there on the expressway that Carl and I drove so many, many times in the middle of the night during those three months after Emily died, I was suddenly pierced by just a shaft of fresh grief, and it was grief that this is her clan too, and she never ever got any of that. It was so bad I really couldn’t breathe, and it kind of shocked me, because mostly her absence is more throbbing.

Balancing that, though, was a little bit of minor history rewriting.  While living mostly in Ottawa and pregnant with Noah we spent some time enjoying Ottawa (about ten percent as much as we would have normally, but man that was a rough pregnancy/time in our lives). But the whole time there was kind of like this massive block which sort of went like: go to nice toystore but don’t buy any baby toys; go to very nice park but don’t imagine having a baby there; go have breakfast at Bramasole but don’t picture bringing a child here. Etc.

So this weekend, given that we were really only in Ottawa about 48 hrs, we crammed a lot in: two fav restaurants; toystore; park.  With Noah. Joyfully with Noah.  And it was goooood stuff.  I don’t know how to describe it really except that I think it is like learning or rediscovering a skill.  Like we had chopped off tiny bits of ourselves to not think those things and we were collecting them up again.

There is nothing that could address the loss of Emily, but the small traumas in the wake of the larger, that is healable, and we did a lot of healing that way this weekend.  I am tired and going to have a very difficult week due to work and scheduling and things, but I also feel just a tad better than I have in a long time. 

I also got kind of nostalgic for Ottawa. It is a nice city, especially in spring. I chose not to live there and so for a while I sort of was villifying it in my head, but no. It really is nice. It just wasn’t the right time for a move, plus, I do love Toronto more. But now I can give Ottawa its proper space as truly enjoyable.

So all in all it was a very full weekend.